William Birkin
Dr. William Birkin, also known as the G''' mutation, is an extremely knowledgeable virologist for the Umbrella Corporation serving as one of the two secondary antagonists of Resident Evil 0 (the other being Albert Wesker), and the overall main antagonist of Resident Evil 2 and its remake (specifically the main antagonist of Claire's scenario and the secondary antagonist of Leon's). He is the one who discovered the G-virus and the person responsible for the Raccoon City Outbreak. "This is my life's work! I'm not handing over anything!" Birkin talking to a swat team Portrayals *In Resident Evil 2, he was voiced by Diego Matamoros. *In Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and Resident Evil 2 remake, he was voiced by TJ Rotolo. *In Biohazard Operation Raccoon City, on Japanese he was voiced by Toshihiko Seki. *He was portrayed by Jason Isaacs in the movie. History Early life William Birkin started working for Umbrella as a researcher when he was only 16 and was assigned to a management training facility under Dr. James Marcus. While there he became good friends with a fellow researcher, Albert Wesker and the two became Marcus’s best students. Birkin and Wesker began research on the T-Virus, which they continued after the shut down of the training facility and their transfer to the Arklay Mountain facility. He had a friendly rivalry with Alex Wesker during the latter's time working for Umbrella. Birkin was proud to be the youngest researcher to ever work for Umbrella until Alexia Ashford arrived on the scene. Though only 10 years old, Alexia became head of the Antarctic Research facility and ignited great jealously from Birkin since his coworkers praised her constantly. He focused on his research and, after no results for a long time, finally created the Hunter, B.O.W. Birkin focused completely on his research from that point onward, even when Alexia was announced to be “dead” in 1983. In 1988, he and Wesker helped to assassinate their former mentor, James Marcus and were put in charge of t-Virus research with Birkin himself being credited for the t-Virus’s creation. By that point, he had married his assistant, Annette, and had a daughter, Sherry. Discovering the G-virus Later, Birkin and Wesker began experimenting with the NE-a parasite. One of their test subjects, Lisa Trevor, was the only subject who fully accepted the parasite into her system, while the others died shortly after it had been implanted. Birkin noticed this and examined her body structure to find that she'd had a Progenitor virus variation injected into her body many years before. This had absorbed the mutagenic organisms in her body, resulting in a new virus that Birkin called the G-virus. After receiving approval to begin further research into the G-virus, Birkin and his wife were transferred to an Underground Research Facility in Raccoon City that had been established specifically for the project. Birkin also bribed the head of the Raccoon City Police, Chief Irons, to ensure the project remained under wraps. Arklay Mountains Incident After Birkin and Wesker began looking into the Outbreak of the t-Virus in the Arklay Mountains area, they were shocked to find out that it had been caused by their former mentor, James Marcus, returned from the grave. Knowing that the truth could not get out for the sake of his career, Birkin activated the self-destruct on the training facility, destroying all of the evidence of his involvement in the conspiracy to get rid of Marcus. Becoming his own creation Birkin finally completed his G-virus in 1998 and planned to use his research to become an Umbrella’s Executive. However, due to conflicts with his superiors, Birkin decided to sell his research to the government. He requested that the military retrieve him, but a unit of Umbrella’s Security Service, the Alpha Team, got to him first. Birkin was left to die with gunshot wounds from an overexcited soldier and his virus research was stolen. Before dying, he injected himself with the G-virus, becoming a terrible monster, dubbed "G". After mutating, G went after the USS team that stole his research, cutting all of them down except the leader, HUNK, and two other members. Vials containing the T-Virus were smashed in the fight, releasing them onto rats, which caused the outbreak throughout Raccoon City. G returned to his lab where he rendered the staff unconscious and infected some of them. However one of the staff members, Monica, stole a G-virus sample and planned to escape to the surface with it. Unfortunately for her, G tracked her down and implanted her with one of his G-virus Spawn embryos. Since Monica’s DNA was not compatible with Birkin’s, she was killed when the embryo tore out of her body. Later, he began wandering around the Raccoon City Police Department and came across a few of the survivors of the outbreak, including his daughter, Sherry. G implanted one of his embryos into Brian Irons, who was not compatible and killed when the embryo burst from his body and also killing a reporter named Ben Bertolucci who locked himself in the precinct's cell. He was able to plant an embryo in Sherry and even called out to her a few times. As he attacked Claire Redfield, Leon S, Kennedy, Ada Wong, and Sherry again and again, G continued to mutate until he faced off against Leon and Claire in his final form. In his final grotesque form, G faced off leon and Claire on the train. As G advances towards Claire, Sherry and Leon, G gets stabbed in his eye and the train cart he is on gets detached from the main train, whereby he finally meet his end when he was thrown back into the infernal explosions behind him. With his final iconic stare, G blew up into nothingness and was consumed by the flames, putting Birkin to rest at last. Powers and Abilities After being accidentally gunned by the Alpha Team of the Umbrella Security Service, a dying Birkin injected himself with the G-Virus so as to gain vengeance upon the Alpha Team. While the G-Virus initially revived him back to normal as seen when Anette found him, he nonetheless began to mutate further into a large monstrous beast with uncanny regenerative powers. *'''Regenerative Healing: Because of the G-virus in his body, Birkin had developed fierce regenerative abilities which make him biologically immortal and very difficult to defeat. Upon injecting himself with the G-Virus, Birkin regenerated from his fatal gunshots and was fine by the time Annette found him declaring vengeance upon the Alpha Team. Even after taking extensive amounts of damage and being destroyed to the point where only a few bones, a clawed hand and some flesh remained, the G-Virus nonetheless regenerated him, but at the same time deformed him into a shapeless blob-like beast. *'Regenerative Mutation': Whenever Birkin's body was too damaged to be repaired properly, the G-Virus forced his body to mutate further, possibly as a response to the extensive trauma. This meant that whenever his genetic make up took extensive amounts of damage, the G-Virus began mutating him further, making him more horrific and monstrously deformed than before with each mutation process, transforming him into a true beast rather than a humanoid being. **'Superhuman Strength': His mutations had cause him to develop much more grotesque muscle mass which in turn gave him superhuman strength. In the remake of Resident Evil 2, it is seen that Birkin possessed enough strength to tear through Mr. X and destroy him. **'Superhuman Endurance': With each mutation, he develops more tolerance for ballistic damage. However, after a certain amount of ballistic attacks, it damages him. **'Bone Talons': By the time of his second mutation, Birkin has developed bone Talons which can instantly kill anyone due to a combination of the talons and his superhuman strength. **'Tumor Growths': William Birkin had also developed amor like eyes around his body. *'Reproduction': He has also demonstrated the ability to implant G-virus Spawn embryos in other people. If the person’s DNA is compatible with Birkin’s DNA, they will be combined with it, but if not, the embryo will tear out of their bodies when it has developed enough. They will then mutate into more mutated monstrosities. Weaknesses *'Regenerative Mutation': His ability to 'evolve' can also be considered a weakness, since the more damage he takes, the more deformed he gets. By his fifth and final form, he was deformed into a shapeless blob. *'Tumor Growths': Birkin's eye like tumor growths around his body served as potential weak spots which injure him, even with conventional firearms. *'Great Explosions': A massive explosion will obliterate him into nothingness, thus killing him. When Birkin came close to killing Claire, she stabbed him in his eye and Leon speared the train carts, sending Birkin into the upcoming explosion. With one final stare from his eye, Birkin exploded into nothingness, putting the beast to rest for good. Appearance and Forms Form 1 In this form, Birkin looks the most like his human self but has had a large increase in muscle mass. One of the most noticeable mutations of this form is the enlarged right arm with a huge, tumor-like eyeball near the shoulder. Since this form lacks any natural weapons, Birkin wields a piece of pipe that he tore from a guardrail with his superhuman strength. He can also throw it or swing it multiple times in succession. Strangely, when Annette remembers how he killed the USS soldiers, Birkin is seen possessing talons that he slices them apart with. However, these claws may have simply atrophied away from lack of use, due to the unpredictability of the G-virus. Interestingly, G1's right arm periodically "de-evolves" slightly, becoming smaller as the eye on the shoulder closes and the spikes retract; this seems to represent Birkin attempting to restrain the G-Virus's degenerative effects on his mind, although it's clearly a losing battle. This is taken further in the Resident Evil 2 remake, where Birkin seems to retain a degree of his humanity; when his right arm shrinks, his cries become less monstrous and distorted, he screams "Help Me!" and "Kill!", and he occasionally pauses to swing at thin air or attempt to pry open the eyeball on his shoulder, leaving him vulnerable. In cutscenes, he also appears to be attempting to protect Sherry by attacking threats to her safety (such as Brian Irons and the T-00) before the G-Virus instincts take over once again. Form 2 In this form, Birkin’s head has been forced down into the chest to be replaced by a new skull, the right hand has sprouted large, bone talons, and two new arms have begun to develop underneath the originals. In this form, G possesses all the same abilities as the previous one but now has the added advantage of its sharp talons. In this form, it attacks by slashing and stabbing at its opponents with its new claws. Interestingly, this form of G managed to recognize Annette, to some extent at least. When it found her, it hesitated and looked at her for a few moments, but attacked her when she drew a gun on it, recognizing her as a threat. G2's general appearance was retained in the Resident Evil 2 remake, but only its left secondary arm is functional; the right side of its stomach shows either signs of the other arm developing or part of its rib cage. Its claws are longer, and the developing rings of spines on its chest have been removed. The developing secondary cranium has yellow eyes (bloody parts of flesh slightly obscuring the right eye) and a mouth to show its fangs. Form 3 In this form, G has lost all of its outer skin to reveal a more muscular body. Countless spike-like projections emerge from the chest while William Birkin’s face has almost utterly faded into the torso. The left arm has also gained talons, though these ones are more like nails rather than the ones made of bone on the right. G has also grown to far beyond the size of a normal human and its primary arms have grown beyond that of a normal human, moving back to become more secondary appendages. The second set of arms from the previous form have become fully functional and developed claws. The new head has fully developed and another tumor-like eye has developed on G’s left arm. In this form, G has most of the same combat characteristics of its previous form, except that it is far more acrobatic, able to use powerful jumping slashes and even a bizarre roundhouse kick where it follows up with a slash from two of its arms. The remake version of G3 has a slightly more hunched physique and an elongated neck, giving his head a slight resemblance to his later forms in the original game. The remnants of Birkin's human face are horribly distorted, barely visible under G's lower-left arm, the eye on its left thigh has become proportionately larger, and the monster has several more bony protrusions on its limbs. The "mouth" on G's chest is slightly smaller and less toothy; however, it's revealed to contain a cluster of small eyeballs that are exposed when the monster is significantly damaged. Form 4 In this mutation, G has become a quadrupedal mutant, utilizing its four primary limbs to move around. The skull and jaw have extended to accommodate the newly formed mouth, which is little more than a gaping maw surrounded by spikes, combining with the spikes that used to cover its torso. Despite having a rather bulky body, G is quite agile and quick in this form and can run, climb walls, and jump all around with little effort. The eyes on its shoulders may or may not be its actual eyes, which would indicate that the ones in its skull are simply for show. G can attack by impaling enemies with the spikes around its mouth, spitting acidic slime out of its mouth, swiping at enemies with its forearms, and biting at them. The Resident Evil 2 remake takes G4's design in a noticeably different direction, resembling a heavily-degraded version of G3 on its way to mutating into G5. Its secondary arms have vanished, and the "mouth" on its chest now dominates most of its torso, with large tusks and eyes protruding in an almost random fashion. Its flesh has become bloated and almost tumorous - seemingly dissolving into independent tendrils only partially fused together - but the monster maintains a bipedal stance, dropping to all fours to move more quickly and climb up walls. The eyes of its degraded head are green, while the rest dotting its body are their usual yellow-to-red. Form 5 Without a doubt, G's fifth form is the most twisted out of all of the mutations, after experiencing massive physical damage, the creature has mutated into a formless abomination of flesh, spikes, limbs, and tentacles. It is able to move only by attaching its largest tentacles to a stationary object and squirming forward with its lesser ones. It is unknown if G would have continued to mutate into other forms after this one. However, this is unlikely since it has already become a formless blob and has nothing left to mutate into. But this mutation is not produced from evolution like the other forms, instead, it is produced by the virus responding to the heavy damage the creature had taken. However, files from Albert Wesker claim that the G-Virus never stops mutating, so it is possible that G could have grown to gargantuan sizes had it survived. Though while extremely weakened in this form, G isn't defenseless. It attacks by swinging its massive tentacles at its prey and hurling wreckage. It also has two highly bizarre attacks, spitting up recently consumed zombies to attack its enemies and ejecting its own mouth to strike at them. It also has some level of intelligence, since it realized the train car it was on was about to explode and screamed “SHERRY!” However, this creature was unable to escape and destroyed by the explosion. Even the G-virus wasn't strong enough to counter the damage, finally putting an end to G. In the Resident Evil 2 remake, G5 is larger than previous appearances, being able to rip off the top of the train car to accomodate itself. It has several tumour-like eyes inside of its mouth, the largest of which ends up being impaled with a pipe. It also seems to spread tiny tendrils of biomass ahead of its main mass, giving the train car a fleshy, "rotting" appearance as it advances. Resident Evil Films William Birkin makes a brief cameo in the first Resident Evil movie. Like in the video game of the same name, William Birkin is one of the scientists that work for the Umbrella Corp. However, unlike the video game, Birkin never injected himself with the G-virus and slowly begin to mutate into the monster known as G. And it was never confirmed if he and Albert Wesker killed James Marcus to take over his research. What happens to William Birkin in this version is currently unknown. Quotes ''Resident Evil 2'' "This is my life's work! I'm not handing over anything!" ~Birkin talking to the swat team ''Resident Evil 0'' ''Resident Evil 2'' Remake Trivia *William Birkin was voiced by Diego Matamoros in Resident Evil 2, and T. J. Rotolo in Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. **William Birkin was also played by Jason Isaacs in the first Resident Evil Movie, who also provided the villainous role of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, Captain Hook in the 2003 Peter Pan film, Ra's al Ghul in Batman: Under the Red Hood, and Satan in Castlevania: Lord of Shadows. *William Birkin was originally going to be the main antagonist in the movie; Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but Jason Isaacs left the product of undisclosed reasons. So a character named Sam Isaacs was created for the film to both fill the space and honor Jason Isaacs. 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